cheapest pc ever......

Forum: water cooler
Topic: cheapest pc ever......
started by: mpie

Posted by mpie on Aug. 31 2004,05:15

just had too share this........
last fri I bought a computer for Ł10.......yes thats right ten G.B.P

granted its an old old turtle but with dsl it flies.......

spec is 200 mhz intel p11 proc 80 mb ram 3.2gb h/d...
floppy, cd-rom inbuilt radio and tv card..........
all running sweet as a nut....
the reason it was so cheap the advert said needed driver.....
what it should have said was needs an o/s (lol)....

Posted by jerome5 on Aug. 31 2004,06:02

I can beat 10 pounds.

How about free? My cousins computer monitor stopped working and I got it and I got it for free

Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 31 2004,13:06

cousin: "Jerome...i think my computer's busted...there's no picture."
jerome5 (checking it out): "Hmmmm...yeah...i think you're right, it's definitely broken. Ummm...you should probably get a new computer. Let me...umm....throw this one away for you..."

Posted by TyphoonMentat on Aug. 31 2004,17:35

I got one for Ł2 - 266Mhz

Took a bit of hacking to get it to work, but runs as a nice little cheap server now.

Posted by UnDude on Aug. 31 2004,18:48

You guys are sure making me feel good about the hardware I've got.

Three of the four PCs I'm running here are older/slower/smaller than the ones you're discussing.

People who advertise computers for sale in my neighborhood *always* ask for way more than the machine is worth. They just don't realize how fast "cutting-edge technology" depreciates.

I don't think I'd ever buy a brand new PC.

Posted by roberts on Aug. 31 2004,19:39

I am not afraid to admit that I fetched an old laptop from a trash bin.
An AMSTech 233Mhz -32MB ram - unbootable cdrom drive- no hard drive - built-in mouse broken - no floppy - no battery.

I put a 64MB compact flash with IDE adapter with DSL and an external mouse, with an old power supply brick. Runs fine. Even my pcmcia wireless card works! Great for testing the ultra low end machines. Only problem, it weights a ton!

I bring it out to show friends how low we can go and wireless too. Wish it was more portable.

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Aug. 31 2004,20:30

oh roberts, i think i can beat that.

Hitachi 420CDS (with a sticker that says NEW!!! Lightning fast 4x CD-ROM!!!)
P1 99mhz
48mb of proprietary Hitachi RAM
originally had win95 on it, friend put win98SE demo edition on it.
HD was dead when i got it, cdrom is no worky
and 2 16bit pcmcia slots.

oh, and did i mention that the battery only lasts 20 mins on a full charge?
it was originally a 45 min battery, so it didn't deprieciate too bad.

had a spare 2gig 2.5 inch HDD layin around, installed DSL in it and hooked that little SOB up.

works like a charm. my friend had it with the trash to throw out, and now it's a decent little FTP server. makes me laugh.

-J.P.
SaidinUnleashed

Posted by cbagger01 on Aug. 31 2004,21:55

OK, how about this:

P1 60Mhz, 40MB RAM, poorman's install to a Win95 FAT16 partition, 80MB swap partition, Intel Etherexpress ISA NIC

A poorman's install with boot floppy is required because the boot floppy's kernel does not contain the special Mitsumi CDROM controller driver and even if I install it via "expert" mode the install scripts do not look to /dev/mcdx as a possible place for the KNOPPIX image file.

Have not tried Firefox because in DSL 0.4.9 the *.ci extension did not exist and 40MB of RAM is too small for the "Get Firefox" script.

However, Opera 6.12 will install into 40MB RAM and works fairly well for the machine, faster than Dillo or Glinks for rich web content. It definately beats the pants off of IE4 in Win95.

Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 31 2004,22:17

Quote (roberts @ Aug. 31 2004,15:39)

I am not afraid to admit that I fetched an old laptop from a trash bin.

That's how I did most of my shopping when I was living in the city =o)
It's amazing what people throw out...over the course of a summer I acquired a 486, p-133, p-200, and pII-333, plus various ram modules, 2 inkjet printers, and the 17" monitor that I still use today. Most of the stuff I left with my old roommate, but I still have the 333 sitting in a corner waiting to be put to some use. I think it has Slackware 8 on it at the moment...maybe I'll try out a harddrive DSL one of these days.

Posted by ke4nt1 on Sep. 01 2004,02:30

I usually frequent "hamfest" for many bargains...
Lots of goodies to be found for next to nothing..
I picked up my last Abit dual-cpu board w/cpu's for $30.00
My last laptop was a 233MMX w/32MB p/s cdrom for $30.00

My best "find" so far is when the county courthouse was upgrading their systems..
I got 8 or so computers as a handout..
P133's w/32 MB ram, 4 MB hercules VGA, ISA NIC, floppy, cdrom, PS, AT style..
Unfortunately, the bioses have no option to boot from cdrom..

73
ke4nt

Posted by DonttPanic on Sep. 01 2004,02:45

I got someone's old desktop (p1 200 mhz) for free after setting up their new comp. Unfortunately, they wanted to keep the hd, but I had my grandpa's old 2 gig hd laying around. Reformatted it. Now its my dsl computer.